


No Kisses On The Mouth

by Sjukdom



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dark, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 19:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7520437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sjukdom/pseuds/Sjukdom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We were good friends once.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Kisses On The Mouth

**Author's Note:**

> The title and the epigraph both originate from Spiritual Front's song "No Kisses On The Mouth".

_The limit of love is that_

_Of needing no kisses on the mouth_

“We were good friends once”, said Oswald in a confessional way and pressed the edge of his wine glass to his lips. It was still cold, as if his own body heat didn’t affect it in the slightest. It felt like a kiss he had never managed to get. It felt like a gag that had prevented him from biting off his tongue during convulsions just before it was stuck into his mouth.

Oswald removed the glass as if pushing away the hungry dry lips that longed to nourish from his wet wine-tasting mouth. Imagining that this scene could be entirely possible. But in the reality there had been no lips burning to cover his own, only the loathsome thing made of the bitter rubber, the gag that he couldn’t push away no matter how hard he tried.

Until he had stopped even trying.

Oswald hastened to gulp down a huge amount of wine from the glass in an attempt to replace the rubber taste on his tongue that followed his memories with the familiar rich taste of fine alcohol. What was real anyway? The room that echoed every sound, the ones that were here and now and the ones that still haunted it from the past? The table that couldn’t be rubbed clean from the crimson stains he was standing near now, just like he had done at the day of his little family dinner? He looked down, into the eyes of the man that sat at the table next to him. The same place at the table. He returned the gaze. He had learned to mimic Jim’s heavy stare quiet well, making the resemblance almost absolute.

The present from Hugo that Oswald wasn’t supposed to receive. The living piece of clay for a bored child. The surrogate for a desperate lover.

“Kiss me”, said Oswald and it sounded like an order and a plea at the same time. The room around shifted, expanded, letting in the sounds of car engines, smells of fuel and sweat, his own sweat, his own fear, letting sticky hands of the securities onto his shoulders. He put the wine glass on the table and stepped back, shoulders hunched, eyes seeking for Jim’s gaze, the delicate blue color of his irises suddenly as cold and deadly as two pools of quicksilver.

Jim blinked and rose to his feet awkwardly, surprised by this unusually innocent task. Oswald felt a twinge of anger at his behavior that threatened to ruin the scene he suddenly wanted to revive and rewrite. As he approached, Oswald stood still, the feelings he still had in his memory clutching his throat once again tighter than the leather collar. The relief. The hope. Jim was here. He would help. They had helped each other so many times. He would listen, grind his teeth a little in his usual manner and would find a way to let him out.

And Oswald would be so very grateful for it. He even believed this himself.

Except that this was the moment when the tight feeling around his throat became the hangman’s noose, when not one thing of those he had imagined came true.

The wine rose from his stomach, the sweetness of it mixed with sour aftertaste of his gastric acid. Oswald squeezed his eyes tight and breathed through his nose deeply, swallowing the memories along with the nauseating liquid that burned his mouth. Jim was near him, he felt the familiar smell of him, the familiar sound of his breathing. All familiar yet slightly wrong. Jim had smelt of the cheap beer and his soap-like aftershave and the river wind that got trapped in his hair during stake-outs, but right now there was an earthly muddy undertone to it all. And the breathing was different, sounded different as if his lungs worked the way they had never used to.

But what was real anyway?

Oswald looked at him through his half-opened eyelids. It blurred his vision, blurred the confusion on Jim’s face as he raised his hands, unsure whether he was allowed to hold Oswald or not. Jim put his palms on his shoulders and leaned forward a bit, his weight shifting so that Oswald could feel it pressing at him. The weight was also different.Too light. But how much was an illusion supposed to weigh?

“They are torturing me”, muttered Oswald, feeling Jim’s breath washing upon his face, his warmth and the security of his arms, slowly embracing his humble posture. “It’s mental torture-”

Jim drew his face closer to Oswald’s, his gaze sliding down his neck, where the shivering flesh was covered by the layers of fancy clothes Oswald wore like an armor, a chitinous carapace or a snail’s house, hiding everything gentle, shy and vulnerable. Everything Hugo Strange managed to turn inside out for everyone to see and touch and every look felt like a puncture and every touch left an ugly scar.

Jim’s lips parted. Cracked and dry, rough even to the look, the lips of a man that was dying of the thirst in front of the table covered with the most delicious drinks. Oswald had always been there for him, but had he ever tried to reach him? Had he ever been tempted to satisfy his needs? No, he was too stoic for that, too rightful, so stupid he chose this dreadful and unnecessary self-sacrifice that proved itself futile anyway.

Oswald opened his eyes. Now Jim looked like he was genuinely willing to get over this thirst. To throw all of his rightfulness aside and stomp on it while stepping closer to embrace Oswald tighter. He cocked his head to one side a bit, exhaling his breath into Oswald’s mouth as if giving him a kiss of life before a real one, the tip of his nose touching Oswald’s cheek, his thick blond hair brushing over his forehead. So willing and eager.

“Torture is what you do.”

The voice of real Jim, not this unnatural doppelganger's one broke through the memories, through the illusions, through the imaginary scenery Oswald was trying to create.

Yes, torture was what he was allowed to do to Jim, because he would accept nothing more.

Oswald stepped back again, placing his palms on Jim’s chest. His heart was beating quickly, wildly, its pulsation almost palpable through the clay-like skin and flesh and bone. He pushed Jim away lightly, making him bump into the table as he walked backwards, confused even more than he had been before.

Oswald estimated his current face expression. The real Jim would be more angry than just confused. And not so scared. But what was real anyway?

The clay was soft. The clay was easy to transform. The clay allowed to do everything. Everything he couldn’t do with the living body of Jim that left him, denied him and betrayed him.

Oswald smiled and took his almost empty glass of wine and finished it in a single gulp.

“Have I told you, why we stopped being good friends, Jim?”


End file.
